You can use a tablespoon or a 5 gallon bucket - it doesn't matter - as long as you use it for both water and sugar.

Vicki, I think you could get a way with using coffee cream which is 18% or even half and half , but you might have to adjust the ratio of cream to chocolate. Add a little more chocolate or use a little less cream. Ann

I would freeze it in a bowl or container overnight, unmold it frozen, and seal the disc in a vacuum sealer or in a ziploc with the air sucked out. Sealing the air out is a good idea. You can do that with the plastic laying on the top if you just want to leave it in the container, but be careful not to fold the plastic into the surface, or you'll have to tug it out. The trick, you see, is peeling off the plastic before it thaws. Things take forever to thaw in my fridge. I have about a quarter cup of beef stock that's been thawing in there for a couple of weeks and isn't even halfway melted. So to use it, I'd put the ganache in the fridge overnight, then put the container in a pan of lukewarm water until it was thawed and workable but use it cold. Microwaves are uneven, so I wouldn't warm it in there. You also don't want it to break. If you want to warm it you can unmold it from the fridge into the double boiler you're going to warm it in. Start it low until it's fully defrosted, then warm it. If you have induction, you don't need the pan of water, and can just warm it in an enamelled pan on low.

This is the pretty basic recipe: 6-9 ounces semisweet or bittersweet chocolate, chopped or shredded into small pieces with a heavy chef knife - "use less chocolate for a pourable glaze (6-7 ounces); use a bit more chocolate for spreadable glaze. - 1 cup heavy cream - 1 teaspoon cognac or vanilla (optional) Place chopped chocolate into a large heat resistant bowl. Bring cream up to the boil. Turn off heat. Pour cream over the chocolate. Cover bowl with a plate or plastic wrap. Stir after 5 minutes. Cover for another 5 minutes. Stir again until it's smooth. (Alternatively, you can pulverize the chocolate in a food processor, pour over the hot cream, and mix until smooth.) At this point you can add a bit of cognac or vanilla if you want. (Haven't made this for years so don't know what a block of chocolate would cost these days. Often wonder if a good brand of bittersweet/semi-sweet chocolate chips wouldn't be okay to use.)